Amazon’s first Super Bowl ad is all in on the Echo

While the Amazon Echo has garnered quite a bit of praise ever since its launch as an invite-only curiosity in November of 2014, it will likely come as a surprise to many when the Echo appears as the central focus of Amazon’s first Super Bowl ad next month.

Amazon released a teaser for the ad today, featuring Alec Baldwin and Dan Marino planning a Super Bowl party and the Echo chiming in with some helpful advice.

The teaser definitely fails to highlight the actual utility of the Echo for me, so hopefully Amazon figures out how to shoehorn a little more into the real ad if they are trying to convince folks to take another look. One of the convenient features of the Echo is keeping a list for you, so putting a smartphone in Marino’s hands with the list from the Echo as it updates would make a lot more sense to me.

Amazon has shown its dedication to the Echo with continuous updates and increased functionality over the last year, and rumors of a portable Echo seem to reaffirm that dedication, but putting the little black speaker front and center in a Super Bowl ad is the clearest sign yet that Amazon views the Echo as a crucial part of its ecosystem.

What do you think of the teaser ad? Can Amazon can sell the Super Bowl audience on the Echo?